


Infractus, truncus, intermissus

by Dark_K



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_K/pseuds/Dark_K
Summary: How broken are you, Albus?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them brought back a LOT of Albus/Gellert feels for me, so. Here, have some, I have nowhere else to put them anymore.
> 
> Also, I haven't read this through yet, so any mistakes are my own fault, and I'll try to correct them soon.

**Infractus, truncus, intermissus**

“How broken are you, Albus?”

The voice, so similar to his own, echoes in his ears, and he stares at the wand in his hand, knowing perfectly well how many plans they had for it, how many nights they had spent awake and dreaming of the day they would have it in their control, the greatness they’d bring to their race.

How superior to everyone else they were – so bright, and full of life, and full of power.

How little did he know back then, thinking he, Albus, was the missing piece _he_ was after, when it wasn’t.

It wasn’t, it had never been.

Love is a dangerous thing.

Aberforth is afraid of it – so afraid he won’t go near it, has never let himself fall for anyone, not really, not deeply. He, too, knows the dangers of loving: he loved Ariana more than words could say, he had loved his parents before they left and after that, much, much more than Albus had.

He still loves Albus – the tiny house, the falling apart bar in the town right next to the school, just so they’d be close, even in all those years they hadn’t talked.

It’s easier to deny love than to love fully.

The broken shell of a man standing in front of his brother is certainly proof enough that Albus may have the academia, the school, the learning, but maybe Aberforth has always been the smarter of the two.

He doesn’t raise his eyes, he just stands. Maybe his brother will punch again, break his nose once more, maybe that will help. He hasn’t heard Abertforth’s voice in decades, and that is the first thing he listens from his brother – how broken is he.

He doesn’t know how broken he is – not because he may not have completely fallen to pieces, but because there are too many pieces now for him to know.

“Broken enough,” Albus tells him, eyes still not meeting his brother’s, and then there’s silence. He doesn’t know what to expect – he doesn’t know why he came here to begin with.

The duel was over, and he had nowhere to go – a thousand parties being thrown in his honor, and all he can think of is those bright blue eyes staring at him in anger, in betrayal.

“We could have done it,” he had whispered, and Albus feels a pang in his heart, because they could have done it – they were certainly bright enough.

They could have taken over the wizard world by a storm, maybe even solve the muggles’ issues along with it, helped them out, as long as they recognized they, the wizards, were their betters. They could have done it – all the poer in the world at their fingertips, they could have done it.

How scary a notion is it that _they could have done it_?

If it weren’t for Ariana, if it weren’t for her death, they might have.

How much scarier is the thought that he had to watch his sister die to realize that what he was doing was wrong? That they didn’t have the right to enslave anyone, that no being was better to any other on this earth?

How broken had he always been that this is knowledge he had to acquire, that he just didn’t _know_ , as Aberforth did?

How evil, and mean spirited is _he_ , Albus, to have ever thought that the Greater Good was reason enough to justify their ideas of subjugation of any race?

How blind that he didn’t see how dark Gellert was until it was too late?

Was it love? Did he know love? Could love, the purest of magics, the highest of feelings, be the breeding ground for such darkness, such evil?

Did he ever love Gellert, or was he merely blinded by what Gellert saw _in him_? Someone as great as he was, someone as bright, as smart, as powerful? Like staring in a mirror for his soul – and if that were true, isn’t he to blame for the war, for the deeds Gellert had managed to accomplish, evil or not? Isn’t he to blame for the deaths of thousands, the children he had gone after, from what he had been told by Newt, the weapons he tried to use.

Ariana.

He always thought _he_ was the one Gellert had been after.

“Is he dead?”

Albus shakes his head no.

“He’s been taken to Nurmengard.”

“Then you’re not completely broken yet,” is the answer he receives, and Albus finally manages to look up and see his brother properly for the first time in so, so long.

He’s aged. He has aged much more than Albus has – sadness weights on him, covers him like a cloak, but also defiance, anger, rage.

Aberforth wears his heart on his sleeve, every feeling is there for the world to see, and yet everyone thinks he’s so good at hiding, when the truth is that he just doesn’t feel positive emotions all that often.

Certainly not around Albus, not for a very long time, long before Gellert came into their lives.

“You think I should’ve killed him,” he states, and his brother is silent for a long moment before answering, bright blue eyes staring into his own.

“I think if you had the world would be a better place, but you’d be a worse person.”

That’s as close to approval as Albus will ever get with Aberforth, so he merely inclines his head, and doesn’t say anything else.

He isn’t sure why he came here of all places. Maybe the _one_ place in the whole wizarding world that wouldn’t welcome him with open arms right now, and maybe this is just what he needs – someone to remind him he isn’t great, he isn’t perfect, he isn’t a savior, he isn’t their hero. He went as close to being their villain as he could get, and just because he backed out, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have it in him, doesn’t mean he’s good.

Aberforth knows that. He knows that better than anyone now – he was there for all of Albus’s moments of weakness, and he was there to see him fall, and to punch some sense into him.

Maybe his brother will never fully forgive him, and Albus is, in a strange manner, glad for it.

He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, he doesn’t deserve to have all those people believing he’s good, but they need this right now, after so long in a war – he just can’t allow himself to believe the same lie they do, or he might make the exact same mistakes again.

“She wouldn’t have, you know,” Abertforth says, and Albus looks at him again – still standing on Aberforth’s dirty doorstep, “Become the monster _he_ was hunting to use as a weapon. She had too much good in her, she wouldn’t have.”

 She could have, Albus knows. That is probably why Gellert insisted on them being near her from time to time, to observe, to learn – he could feel her raw power, and maybe an Obscurus isn’t what he thought of her, but he knew how much potential she had.

Gellert had always been good at measuring people’s potential.

He nods, however, when he sees Abertforth is waiting for his answer – it’s a lie, and he knows it, but he nods. His brother needs something to believe in, so let him believe Ariana would have been harmless her whole life. That her magical outbursts had never hurt anyone, that they wouldn’t have been caught in the crossfire at some point.

The problem with being as broken as Albus is right now is that he can see through everyone’s cracks, not just his own.

“Come in, and I’ll get you a drink,” Aberforth offers and he follows.

He isn’t happy they are talking again, he isn’t even relieved – he did his duty, he defeated Gellert Grindenwald, the wizard who got their sister killed, and Albus knows Aberforth only ever needed him to do this one thing to accept him back into his strange, closed off life.

He gets in, and the door closes behind him with finality – it is done.  Aberforth accepting him back in his life is the proof he needed that he did what he had to do, that he stopped the evil he helped create.

That night, he doesn’t think of Tom Riddle and what he could have been up to. He has no idea that in just a few years he’ll meet the children who will die for his cause, that he will get their own son killed, and that Gellert, the ghost who will haunt him forever, just as much as Ariana haunts Aberforth, will be the one who’ll inspire him to have an answer for that child to come back.

He has no idea that, in the end, a tiny piece of Gellert did love him – not as much as he loved power, not as much as he loves himself, but he did.

And when Gellert dies at the hands of the evil Dumbledore tried to stop, but couldn’t, his last thought is that maybe he’s bought Albus’s plan some more time to work, and after so long in that cold prison, it sounds good enough for him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Come tell me what you think of it.](http://darkjan.tumblr.com/)


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